The People’s Republic: Constitutional basis

CONTINUED FROM LAST WEEK

THE offspring too are never in doubt as to their natural obligation to cater for their parents in their old age or infirmity. In addition, the able-bodied members of the family are fully conscious of their bounden duty to defend the whole family, or any member thereof, against outside attack. To ensure the cohesion and survival of the family, each member is fully conscious of his duty to inform on, apprehend, and prevent the attempted or actual commission of crime by any other member of the family. Furthermore, the entire family recognizes its obligation to assist and care for those of its members who, for reasons of age, sickness, disability, or adventitious circumstances are unable to earn a livelihood. In short, the well-being of each member of the family is the concern of all, and vice versa; and the wealth of the family is shared among its members with manifest fairness and equity, The needs of the young, the aged, the sick and the disabled; and the relative contributions of the able-bodied, are the overriding factors in the distribution of the family wealth.

As time went on, however, competition among different families for-the acquisition of means of livelihood, the propensity to greediness, envy, and dispute among them over a large variety of matters led to mutual strife .involving violence, bloodshed, and death. In the course of time, it was recognized that this state of affairs could not be allowed to continue indefinitely, if members of various families were to survive, live in peace and reasonable contentment, and enjoy the fruits of their labour.

Where different families lived as peaceable neighbours, they sooner or later discovered that some advantages of division of labour which were otherwise lacking might accrue to them if they united or co-operated with one another for purposes of production and exchange.

Therefore, in order to eliminate inter-family strifes with their gruesome consequences, to ensure mutual amity and welfare among themselves, to protect the individual liberty which they enjoyed within the family unit, to effect joint resistance against external foes, and for the purpose of more efficient production and exchange, two or more families had to come together to form a larger society.

This early primitive society was certainly not anywhere as well organized as our present society. All the present State paraphernalia of internal order and peace, and of security against external foes – such as the police force, the armed forces, the judicature, the Civil Service, public works, organized diplomacy and Foreign Service, and taxation for the purpose of maintaining public services – all these were not there in the fully-grown forms in which we now know them. But they were all there in their embryonic forms. Otherwise, no aggregation of families and no society or State would have had any chance of survival.

There can be no doubt that every member of this bigger  aggregation, like every member of the family unit, recognized it to be his’duty to inform on, apprehend, and”prevent crime, whenever and wherever its attempted or actual commission came to his notice.

When families lived apart from one another, the commission of crime by one against another was visited with revenge or self-redress of the most savage order; civil disputes were settled by force; and both invariably led to war. When they now lived together in unity, there is no doubt that they had, amongst them, some person or group of persons, who were charged with the functions of adjudicating over criminal matters and civil disputes. It was this person or body of persons who dealt with all litigation according to the prevailing customs or mores. It was before them that an apprehended criminal was brought for trial. As there was no regular prison, there was no doubt that these early prototypes of the judiciary made very short shrift indeed of a criminal. As soon as he was adjudged guilty, he was compelled to make quick and full restitution in cash or kind or, in the alternative, he was, equally quickly, physically disposed of, or otherwise dealt with. Hence the savagery and brutality of execution and maiming for the pettiest of crimes, such as stealing yams, or adultery.

In order to apprehend and prevent the commission of crime at night, and to prevent enemy infiltration under the cover of darkness, citizens voluntarily organized themselves into guards in different parts of the land in order to ensure the security of their society. It is natural to expect—and that was what did happen—that in order that their internal peace might be permanent and meaningful, they must arm themselves and be always prepared to discourage, by every conceivable means including a show of strength and propaganda, attack or threats of attack on them from outside, and to resist and beat off any such attack if and when it was attempted or made.

To this end, there is no doubt that, as in the case of maintaining “internal order,” every able-bodied person regarded himself as a soldier and defender of the fatherland. There was no need of force or coercion on him. It was a duty which he recognized voluntarily, because it was in his own personal interest to do so. From amongst this irregular voluntary soldiery, some leaders naturally emerged. The most courageous, the most intelligent, and the most skillful in the wielding of the crude weapons then in use naturally led the rest in war.

CONTINUES NEXT WEEK

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